10 Signs We Live in a False Economy

It’s time to admit that we live in a false economy. Smoke and mirrors are used to make us believe the economy is real, but it’s all an elaborate illusion.

Out of one side of the establishment’s mouth we hear excitement about “green shoots”, and out of the other side comes breathless warnings of fiscal cliffs and the urgent need for unlimited bailouts by the Fed.

We hear the people begging for jobs and the politicians promising them, but politicians can’t create jobs. We see people camped out to buy stuff on Black Friday indicating the consumer economy is seemingly thriving, only to find out everything was bought on credit.

The corporate media does their best to distract us from seeing anything real. We see the media glorify Kim Kardashian who got rich by being famous, and became famous merely by being rich. She got front page coverage on Huffington Post this week because her cat died. Enough said.

Meanwhile the financial media makes the economy seem complicated and they ban anyone who speaks truthfully about the economy from their airwaves.

Is it any wonder why people are angry and confused about the economy?

Well, hopefully these signs that we live in a false economy will help clear up some of that confusion.

1. Fake Jobs: It’s not just that the “official” unemployment numbers are a fraud, the actual jobs are fake as well. Ask yourself how many professions actually produce something of value? 80% of jobs could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t affect basic human survival or happiness in the least. Yes, in our society we need money to survive – and jobs equal money – but that doesn’t mean a “job” has any actual benefit to society. More on this in the next point…

2. Problems Create Jobs, Not Solutions: We can’t fix real problems, because it would destroy more fake jobs. We can’t end the wars and bring all of the personnel home when the jobless rate is already suffering. We can’t end the War on Drugs because where would the DEA agents, prison guards, the court system, parole officers, and the rest of their support staff work. We can’t simplify the tax code because the bookkeepers, CPAs, accounting professors, and tax attorneys would be unemployed. We cannot reduce the bureaucracy of government or streamline healthcare because paper pushers have few other notable skills. We can’t stop spying on Americans because it now employs millions of people. We can’t restrict the Wall Street casino, or hardly anyone will be left with a job. Finally, what will happen to university jobs when people either realize their product is not worth the cost or they discover they can get the same education online for nearly free? In other words, we need these manufactured problems to create phony employment.

3. Money Has No Value: Money is the biggest illusion of all. Our money is loaned into existence with arbitrary interest rates by a private monopoly. It is an IOU. It only has value because a law says it has value, and that value fluctuates based on how much supply is in the economy which, again, is controlled by a for-profit monopoly. It’s actual value is zero since it is just a piece of paper with fancy ink on it. The only things with real value to humans are skills (labor), tools and materials, food and water, and energy.

4. The Fed Now Buys 90% of the Nation’s Debt: Speaking of money, the Federal Reserve loans money to the US government who issues bonds to cover their spending. Those bonds are sold on the open market through auctions to investors who believe in the ability of the United States to make good on those bonds. Apparently, the US has no more investors because the Fed is now buying 90% of new Treasury bonds. This is called monetizing debt, or, essentially, monetizing money. That’s what a Ponzi scheme does. This acts to keep interest rates artificially low because they’d have to raise them to attract outside “investors”. In layman terms, our whole monetary system is a paper tiger, a house of cards, or whatever metaphor you want to use for fake.

5. What is the Value of Anything? The price discovery mechanism, or the process to determine the value of an asset in the marketplace, has become so convoluted that determining the genuine value of anything has become nearly impossible. Between government subsidizes for things like food, fuel, education, housing, insurance and even cars; taxes, regulations and laws; the manipulation of the value of money and interest rates; Wall Street gambling on commodities; what is the real value of something? For example, why does an ounce of marijuana (a weed that can grow anywhere) cost up to $500? Is that the real value based on labor and materials, and supply and demand? Of course not. Its value is inflated mainly due to laws and regulations.

6. Failure is Rewarded: You know we live in a false economy when failure is rewarded and success is penalized. Citizens everywhere are being told they need to tighten their belts, work harder so we can bailout the failed government, banks, insurance companies and even car companies. And when we work harder and achieve some success, they tax it heavily to indefinitely pay for these fraudulent institutions. Yet this infinite money creation and taxation is light years from solving the root cause of the problem. The reality is that the banks’ solutions are the problem, enriching the investor class at the expense of the middle class. Global bankers are playing with taxpayer money – and the money of many future generations – in a global casino royale that is destined to fail so they can take the people’s assets. They are all-in; but their money is fake, and our assets put at risk are real.

7. Corporate entities have the same rights as humans, but not the same punishments: When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have free-speech rights of people, it was one of the final nails in the coffin of the republic. Monied interests can now openly finance elections and buy the legislation they need to operate with impunity. Corporations may be comprised of humans, but they are not subjected to the same standard of humanity. It was profoundly argued in the article What if BP Were a Human Being? that judged by common standards of morality, decency, and previously agreed-upon definitions of criminality, BP would be judged a psychopathic killer … and immortal. Ditto for the rest leading the predatory corporate pack; the most obvious being defense contractors. And since these corporations are now joined at the hip with government itself, what does that make government? By changing definitions, they are attempting to change reality. But that still doesn’t make it the truth.

8. People buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have: In a type of trickle-down debt whirlpool, the government’s rampant spending without sufficient assets to back it up is mirrored in the behavior of the American consumer. Despite inflation, rising unemployment, and a continued collapse in real estate, it hasn’t stopped credit spending. The Associated Press just reported that for the month of October:

Americans swiped their credit cards more often in October and borrowed more to attend school and buy cars. The increases drove U.S. consumer debt to an all-time high.

The Federal Reserve said Friday that consumers increased their borrowing by $14.2 billion in October from September. Total borrowing rose to a record $2.75 trillion.

Borrowing in the category that covers autos and student loans increased by $10.8 billion. Borrowing on credit cards rose by $3.4 billion, only the second monthly increase in the past five months. (Source)

Most troubling is the type of borrowing highlighted. The worst possible borrowing would be these negative-return investments such as student loans, credit cards, and cars. It is magical thinking taken to the highest degree.

9. Entrepreneurs are punished: It has become nearly impossible to make a simple living on your own. America has become a land filled with bureaucratic red tape that actively thwarts small business creation and criminalizes independence. There is perhaps no better example of this than the attacks waged against the ultimate entrepreneurial endeavor of self-reliance: the family farm. Through collectivist models such as Agenda 21, long-running family farms are being shut down and supplanted with “protected zones.” In the most recent case, a family oyster farm was shut down based on provably false scientific data that aimed to demonstrate negative environmental and economic impacts. It was completely fake, ending an 80-year local business that generated 50,000 tourists per year and employed 30 full-time local residents. In many of these cases the federally stolen property winds up in the hands of developers who have no interest in a true local economy. It is an inherent part of any false economy to create dependence where none should exist at all. A five-minute video that can be seen here sums up the American economy of illusions and the death of the American Dream.

10. Engineered Slavery: Do you think slavery died in the 1800s? Think again. Economic hitmen (lenders) have successfully enslaved-by-debt everything from nations, entire industries, state and local governments and nearly every person on the planet. And they bought your servitude with money they never had, they simply created it out of thin air. Even if an individual doesn’t have any bank financing or credit cards, they still pay the private Federal Reserve through inflation and income taxes. As author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins, would say: the time has come for the banks to collect their “pound of flesh” from average citizens by way of higher taxes, less social services, and taking your pensions — “austerity.” For an enlightening explanation of how economic hitmen work their dark magic please watch this video. If you’re still confused, see these 10 signs you might be a slave. Another, more obvious, form of engineered slavery is prison labor. Laws and regulations are specifically created to add to the prison population which enriches the corporations that own them, while local communities actually become poorer and more dangerous (source).
As George Carlin said, “It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.” It would be bad enough if it were contained to only one country, but we are now experiencing a global collective dreaming that fantasizes about a government figuring things out just in the nick of time. However, in the real world, the collapse has begun in earnest. Until we are committed to counter the 10 points above, we will remain in the grip of an hallucination. However, there are encouraging signs through protests worldwide, alternative currency movements, and myriad creative solutions in the most affected countries like Iceland, Greece, and Spain that people are beginning to shake off their sleep, look in the mirror and realize that the dream economy they have been sold was designed to make them seek solutions in entirely the wrong direction.

Obama’s Gun Ban List Is Out

Alan Korwin – Author Gun Laws Of America GunLaws.comHere it is, folks, and it is bad news. The framework for legislation is always laid, and the Democrats have the votes to pass anything they want to impose upon us. They really do not believe you need anything more than a brick to defend your home and family. Look at the list and see how many you own. Remember, it is registration, then confiscation. It has happened in the UK, in Australia, in Europe, in China, and what they have found is that for some reason the criminals do not turn in their weapons, but will know that you did.

Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens.

Gun-ban list proposed. Slipping below the radar (or under the short-term memory cap), the Democrats have already leaked a gun-ban list, even under the Bush administration when they knew full well it had no chance of passage (HR 1022, 110th Congress). It serves as a framework for the new list the Brady’s plan to introduce shortly. I have an outline of the Brady’s current plans and targets of opportunity. It’s horrific. They’re going after the courts, regulatory agencies, firearms dealers and statutes in an all out effort to restrict we the people. They’ve made little mention of criminals. Now more than ever, attention to the entire Bill of Rights is critical. Gun bans will impact our freedoms under search and seizure, due process, confiscated property, states’ rights, free speech, right to assemble and more, in addition to the Second Amendment. The Democrats current gun-ban-list proposal (final list will be worse):

Rifles (or copies or duplicates):
M1 Carbine,
Sturm Ruger Mini-14,
AR-15,
Bushmaster XM15,
Armalite M15,
AR-10,
Thompson 1927,
Thompson M1;
AK,
AKM,
AKS,
AK-47,
AK-74,
ARM,
MAK90,
NHM 90,
NHM 91,
SA 85,
SA 93,
VEPR;
Olympic Arms PCR;
AR70,
Calico Liberty ,
Dragunov SVD Sniper Rifle or Dragunov SVU, Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN/LAR, or FNC, Hi-Point20Carbine, HK-91, HK-93, HK-94, HK-PSG-1, Thompson 1927 Commando, Kel-Tec Sub Rifle; Saiga, SAR-8, SAR-4800, SKS with detachable magazine, SLG 95, SLR 95 or 96, Steyr AU, Tavor, Uzi, Galil and Uzi Sporter, Galil Sporter, or Galil Sniper Rifle ( Galatz ).
Pistols (or copies or duplicates):
Calico M-110,
MAC-10,
MAC-11, or MPA3,
Olympic Arms OA,
TEC-9,
TEC-DC9,
TEC-22 Scorpion, or AB-10,
Uzi.
Shotguns (or copies or duplicates):
Armscor 30 BG,
SPAS 12 or LAW 12,
Striker 12,
Streetsweeper. Catch-all category (for anything missed or new designs):
A semiautomatic rifle that accepts a detachable magazine and has:
(i) a folding or telescoping stock,
(ii) a threaded barrel,
(iii) a pistol grip (which includes ANYTHING that can serve as a grip, see below),
(iv) a forward grip; or a barrel shroud.
Any semiautomatic rifle with a fixed magazine that can accept more than
10 rounds (except tubular magazine .22 rim fire rifles).
A semiautomatic pistol that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine, and has:
(i) a second pistol grip,
(ii) a threaded barrel,
(iii) a barrel shroud or
(iv) can accept a detachable magazine outside of the pistol grip, and
(v) a semiautomatic pistol with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds.
A semiautomatic shotgun with:
(i) a folding or telescoping stock,
(ii) a pistol grip (see definition below),
(iii) the ability to accept a detachable magazine or a fixed magazine capacity of more than 5 rounds, and
(iv) a shotgun with a revolving cylinder.
Frames or receivers for the above are included, along with conversion kits.
Attorney General gets carte blanche to ban guns at will: Under the proposal, the U.S. Attorney General can add any “semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General.”

Note that Obama’s pick for this office, Eric Holder, wrote a brief in the Heller case supporting the position that you have no right to have a working firearm in your own home. In making this determination, the bill says, “there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event.” In plain English this means that ANY firearm ever obtained by federal officers or the military is not suitable for the public.

The last part is particularly clever, stating that a firearm doesn’t have a sporting purpose just because it can be used for sporting purpose — is that devious or what? And of course, “sporting purpose” is a rights infringement with no constitutional or historical support whatsoever, invented by domestic enemies of the right to keep and bear arms to further their cause of disarming the innocent.

San Diegans could face 6 years in prison and fines of $100,000 dollars a day for washing their car in the driveway or failing to pick up dog poop under new EPA-mandated environmental regulations related to water quality.

Although residents of the city are forced to drink toxic waste in their water supply in the form of sodium fluoride, measures imposed as a consequence of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act would turn the most mundane of activities into a criminal offense.

“California’s latest experiment in faith-based policymaking is being unleashed today on the San Diego public, as regional water-quality officials begin hearings on new regulations that seem crafted to turn most owners of a car, house or dog into criminals within a decade or so. We wish we were exaggerating,” reports the North County Times.

“Under the draft rules, ordinary homeowners may face six years in prison and fines of $100,000 a day if they are deemed serial offenders of such new crimes as allowing sprinklers to hit the pavement, washing a car in the driveway, or, conceivably, failing to pick up dog poop promptly from their own backyards, let alone the sidewalk.”

The regulations will be enforced with the aid of a 24-hour telephone snitch line which residents of San Diego, south Orange and southwest Riverside counties can use to report on their neighbors for violating the new code.

The new rules could even force firefighters to collect the water they use to douse burning buildings.

The editorial board of the North County Times warns that the rules are “preposterous” and will “sap billions of dollars from the local economy.”

“In hundreds of pages, the new regulations set targets that measure bacteria from animal waste during dry periods at local beaches, even as they note that wide variations in bacteria occur naturally in the environment. And we could find no evidence from these officials that severe cuts in stormwater runoff will cause improvements in human or wildlife health. Indeed, nowhere do they bother to say why today’s levels are considered bad for us,” writes the newspaper.

Ironically, while San Diegans could be turned into criminals for failing to uphold dubious water quality standards, they are simultaneously being forced to consume drinking water contaminated with a known toxic waste – sodium fluoride.

Environmentalists and EPA regulators don’t appear to be too concerned about a product which has on its packaging a skull and crossbones being artificially added to the water supply, but the runoff from a car wash or a piece of dog poop apparently poses a big enough threat to turn residents into criminals for engaging in activity as mundane as cleaning their vehicle.

Stephanie Gaines, land use and environmental planner for the county’s Department of Public Works, pointed out that ”The regulations stem from the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act and are passed down to the state, regional, and local levels.”

Planning group member Chad Anderson said that the regulations appeared to “Overlap with statements from Agenda 21, the comprehensive global plan for sustainable development that was created at a United Nation’s Earth Summit in 1992. It was signed by more than 178 countries, including the United States, and opponents say it targets private property.”

As we have previously highlighted, the UN’s Agenda 21, which is being implemented across the United States in a number of different guises, demands that member nations adopt “sustainable development” policies that are little more than a disguise for the reintroduction of neo-feudalism and only serve to reduce living standards and quality of life.

The regulations about to be foisted upon San Diegans are merely a taste of the kind of big government tyranny and control freak micromanagement we can expect to see unleashed against Americans under the guise of environmentalism when real environmental issues like toxic waste being added to the water supply are completely ignored.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

Agenda 21 Micro-Apartments Built Across America in the Name of Sustainability

In San Francisco single individuals are rent their very own 1st generation Agenda 21 two hundred and twenty-two square foot apartment (if the closet and bathroom are factored into the allocated living space). The intention of these “shoe box homes” are to house marginalize the general public and train them to accept less living space in the name of affordability.

In the South Market neighborhood in San Francisco, Patrick Kennedy, a UC Berkley-based developer, will reveal his contribution to the move toward cramped housing with mini-apartments of 300 square foot. Kennedy explains: “You could obviously build more of them if you don’t have to do them as large.”

Residents who live alone can expect to be coerced into giving up extra room for breath-taking views of the Bay area, furniture that comes out of the walls and beds that convert to couches to maximize living space.

In essence, these mini-apartments are only a bit bigger than the average US prison cell, although designed to resemble a hotel room.

Back in July, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the construction of 275 to 300 square foot micro-apartments in Kips Bay in a beta-test to coerce New Yorkers into living in tight-knit, purposefully dense areas to alter the psychological landscape toward conversation globalist style.

In Boston, one developer exclaims that renters only need 450 square feet to live in and anything else is a waste of space. In the Seaport District Mayor Thomas M. Menino says that young professionals will want to live in these mini-apartments because of their exceptional waterfront views. Menino’s $100 million endeavor called the Boston Wharf Tower is a “project will help turn this neighborhood into a vibrant, 24-hour mixed-use community.”

In these units there is barely room for furniture, so designers made sure that there would be a pull-out couch and a comparatively small monthly rental to justify asking the Bostonian public to live in a personal Agenda 21 prison.

Mark Edlen, developer of the Boston Wharf Tower, says that “we’re into building housing that enables people to live, work, and think differently. We think of the common space in our buildings and the streetscape outside as the living room for our residents.”

Edlen is also involved in building 330 square foot apartments across the street from the Boston Wharf Tower. These mini-apartment complexes are touted as glorified bedrooms because the modern Bostonian is expected to dine, socialize and work outside their residence – so why have so much room to live in?
The idea is to create more reason for pedestrians, less room for personal cars, and the shoe-box apartments are justified.

Last June, at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, there were more than 692 promises of monetary support by world leaders for Agenda 21 policies and schemes which amounted to an estimated $513 billion.

Local Governments for Sustainability USA, a.k.a. ICLEI, is a non-governmental organization (NGO) sponsored by the UN to implement Agenda 21 in America. By their own mission statement, ICLEI is designed to “build, serve, and drive a movement of local governments to advance deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and achieve tangible improvements in local sustainability.” They are responsible for the coercion and “consulting” that manifests the micro-apartments, sustainable living, and light-rail depots that will alter American living to reflect the controls of the global Elite as explained by the UN in a subversive march toward global governance.

Jose-Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, explained: “Without the private sector it’s not going to work. While governments put up the seed money, the big numbers come from the private sector. The private sector is looking at green growth with great interest, seeing it as an opportunity, as jobs, as investment.”

Some of this funding has translated into the Sustainable Communities initiative that is pushed by the US government. This Agenda 21 scheme supports micro-housing built near light-rail depots to combine “lower transportation costs, reduce air pollution and storm water runoff, decrease infrastructure costs, preserve historic properties and sensitive lands, save people time in traffic, be more economically.”

Marketed as “important to our national goals of strengthening our economy and creating good jobs”; these “sustainable communities” place more importance on biodiversity as less emphasis on human needs. The focus of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities is to develop:

Beta-testing of sustainable communities are happening in Colorado, Boston, Missouri, California, West Virginia, South Dakota, Arkansas, Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio and many more states across the domestic US. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is awarding money to states that follow the Agenda 21 guidelines set forth in their manual entitled, Smart Growth Illustrated.

In the Transition Town initiative, these already existing towns are modified to reflect the UN’s Agenda 21 mandates on CO2 emissions. These sustainable towns are popping up in Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the US. Through manipulative training courses and propaganda films , Transition Towns are beginning to take root as a fake grassroots effort that poses a great danger to our individuality and personal sovereignty.

Eco-fascists are concerned about the growing population and its relationship to our growing cities. By demanding that megacities become the mandate for population stabilization, there would be an increased effort to save biodiversity and reduce man-made global warming.

Ten Easy Steps To American Serfdom

By Dave Hodges

The United States is quickly descending down the path of serfdom in a 21st century application of modern day feudalism.

A new strategy has appeared in America which threatens to make a real live serf out of nearly every American citizen. The main emphasis of this attack is the ongoing conversion to Communitarian law and a dramatic departure from our time honored Constitutional law. There are ten steps to implement on the way to your enslavement and incarceration into a feudal society of that only Satan could be proud of.

The erosion of these liberties is not the result of a series of random, unconstitutional acts by power-hungry globalist minions. Instead, the new and emerging system of American justice is bringing forth a sweeping set of reforms which is quickly ending our experiment with inalienable, individual liberties. This new system of justice is called Communitarian law and is the antithesis of Constitutional law as it champions community interests at the expense of individual liberties. Terms like sustainability, smart growth, collectivism and sacrificing for the greater good represent some of the buzz words and phrases of Communitarian law.

Americans have come to expect that our individual liberties are granted by God, not by man or by government. We also believe, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, that these rights are inalienable and may not be taken away by government. The United States Constitution prevents not only the implementation of tyrannical practices against it citizens, it also prohibits the will of the majority from abusing the civil liberties of the minority.

Sadly, the United States Constitution is on life support and the patient is nearing the end. So where is this leading the country?

The Supreme Court case of Kelo v. The City of New London, CT. (2005) usurped America’s Fifth Amendment rights with regard to property rights. Government can now seize your property, and for the first time, award your property to a private entity who is presumably a cohort of someone in government. Some Americans are decrying these acts as unconstitutional. These Americans are correct. However, all of these acts are legal under the Communitarian system of justice because the intent is based on what is in the common good and not on what is constitutionally legal. And who gets to decide what is in the common, or the communist good? That would be the people brining you Communitarian law, the global elite. Don’t forget the old axiom of the Golden Rule. He who has the gold, makes the rules. In the modern day application of this old saying states that he who prints the money gets to steal your home. Please read on for the explanation.

Our abandonment of the U.S. Constitution in favor of Communitarian law allows the Federal Reserve, through QE3, to purchase $40 billion of mortgage based securities and will continue to purchase $40 billion worth of mortgaged properties each and every month until they own every single piece of real estate in the country. This process began on September 13, 2012 and will continue until all privately owned properties are held by the money changers.

If the bail out money from QE1 and QE2 had been applied to the totality of America’s home commercial mortgages, every home and business mortgage would have been paid off in full. Instead, the bail out money went to crooked bankers who broke the law in perpetuating the crises in the first place, which sent our home values plummeting. The bailouts set the stage for the Federal Reserve to accomplish its two goals of seizing all private property in American and collapsing the dollar as a prelude to the roll out of a new global currency.

Welcome to the new Americana feudal manor and you and I are the serfs. Maybe this is why Homeland Security purchased 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, over the past year, because the globalists realize that even the most dumbed down American might think that fighting for their home is worth taking on the corrupt federal government.

When one steps back and looks at the brilliant strategy concocted by the global elite, one can only marvel at their cleverness. First, Wall Street plays the reckless derivative debt game and collapses the world’s economy. Second, home values dramatically drop. Third, the banks seize begin seizing underwater properties with money printed out of thin air by the Federal Reserve. Fourth, the economy eventually collapses from printing 40 billion dollars of mortgage backed securities every single month. Fifth, global currency and global government is ushered in. Sixth, Obama adopts the UN gun ban and uses the newly purchased 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition on the dissenters. Seventh, with Americans out of their homes, they can be forced into the new stack and pack cities complete with their 200-500 square foot apartments. Eighth, Americans will be subject to forced vaccines and real depopulation will begin in earnest. Nine, one child limits will be placed on families, and tenth the 10% who survive this vicious transition will live in humanities darkest days in a hellish nightmare that even George Orwell could not have foreseen.

The Special Interests Won Again

By Paul Craig Roberts

The election that was supposed to be too close to call turned out not to be so close after all. In my opinion, Obama won for two reasons: (1) Obama is non-threatening and inclusive, whereas Romney exuded a “us vs. them” impression that many found threatening, and (2) the election was not close enough for the electronic voting machines to steal.

As readers know, I don’t think that either candidate is a good choice or that either offers a choice. Washington is controlled by powerful interest groups, not by elections. What the two parties fight over is not alternative political visions and different legislative agendas, but which party gets to be the whore for Wall Street, the military-security complex, Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and energy, mining, and timber interests.

Being the whore is important, because whores are rewarded for the services that they render. To win the White House or a presidential appointment is a career-making event as it makes a person sought after by rich and powerful interest groups. In Congress the majority party can provide more services and is thus more valuable than the minority party. One of our recent presidents who was not rich ended up with $36 million shortly after leaving office, as did former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who served Washington far better than he served his own country.

Wars are profitable for the military/security complex. Israel rewards its servants and punishes its enemies. Staffing environmental regulatory agencies with energy, mining, and timber executives is regarded by those interests as very friendly behavior.

Many Americans understand this and do not bother to vote as they know that whichever candidate or party wins, the interest groups prevail. Ronald Reagan was the last president who stood up to interest groups, or, rather, to some of them. Wall Street did not want his tax rate reductions, as Wall Street thought the result would be higher inflation and interest rates and the ruination of their stock and bond portfolios. The military/security complex did not want Reagan negotiating with Gorbachev to end the cold war.

What is curious is that voters don’t understand how politics really works. They get carried away with the political rhetoric and do not see the hypocrisy that is staring them in the face. Proud patriotic macho American men voted for Romney who went to Israel and, swearing allegiance to his liege lord, groveled at the feet of Netanyahu. Obama plays on the heart strings of his supporters by relating a story of a child with leukemia now protected by Obamacare, while he continues to murder thousands of children and their parents with drones and other military actions in seven countries. Obama was able to elicit cheers from supporters as he described the onward and upward path of America toward greater moral accomplishments, while his actual record is that of a tyrant who codified into law the destruction of the US Constitution and the civil liberties of the American people.

The election was about nothing except who gets to serve the interest groups. The wars were not an issue in the election. Washington’s provoking of Iran, Russia, and China by surrounding them with military bases was not an issue. The unconstitutional powers asserted by the executive branch to detain citizens indefinitely without due process and to assassinate them on suspicion alone were not an issue in the election. The sacrifice of the natural environment to timber, mining, and energy interests was not an issue, except to promise more sacrifice of the environment to short-term profits. Out of one side of the mouth came the nonsense promise of restoring the middle class while from the other side of the mouth issued defenses of the offshoring of their jobs and careers as free trade.

The inability to acknowledge and to debate real issues is a threat not only to the United States but also to the entire world. Washington’s reckless pursuit of hegemony driven by an insane neoconservative ideology is leading to military confrontation with Russia and China. Eleven years of gratuitous wars with more on the way and an economic policy that protects financial institutions from their mistakes have burdened the US with massive budget deficits that are being monetized. The US dollar’s loss of the reserve currency role and hyperinflation are plausible consequences of disastrous economic policy.

How is it possible that “the world’s only superpower” can hold a presidential election without any discussion of these very real and serious problems being part of it? How can anyone be excited or made hopeful about such an outcome?

About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.

Who pocketed Gaddafi’s billions?

NATO’s military campaign in Libya is remarkable, among other things, for the following two reasons.

First – the damage that the air raids by the Western anti-Gaddafi alliance caused to Libya is estimated to be 7 times bigger than the damage which bombing by the Nazis caused in Europe during WWII.

Second – Muammar Gaddafi and his associates had, in total, $ 150 bln on bank accounts in various parts of the world. After the beginning of the Libyan revolution, the West froze these accounts. Now, this money has disappeared somewhere.

Russian expert in Eastern affairs Anatoly Egorin tries to analyze these two cases in his recently published book, titled “The Ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. A Libyan Diary. 2011-2012.”

Speaking about the damage which Western bombing attacks caused to Libya, one may probably say that every war causes damage. This is true, but the amount of damage can be greater or smaller. It may be doubted that the ousting of Gaddafi, however tyrannical he might have been, was really worth the damage which NATO bombs caused to Libya – to say nothing of the fact that introducing a no-fly zone over a country and then bombing it is, to put it mildly, not very consistent.

However, the sum which Gaddafi and his associates had in bank accounts, and which the West, in fact, has stolen – $ 150 bln – might have been enough to reconstruct the Libyan infrastructure after the damage caused by the bombs – if not fully, then, at least, partially. But now, that money has disappeared. Why and where? Here is what Anatoly Egorin says:

“The West most likely decided right after the very start of the anti-Gaddafi rebellion in Libya to do whatever possible to prevent Gaddafi from staying in power. His and his associates’ bank accounts were immediately frozen. Or, it would be probably better to say that it was only officially announced that they were frozen, but in reality they were stolen. Nobody can say for sure precisely who stole this money and where it is now. There is only some vague information that it was allegedly pocketed by the bankers themselves and that these bankers allegedly tried to launder this money in offshore zones. Attempts to find this money are now under way, but I doubt that it will ever be found.”

“However,” Mr. Egorin continues, “it would be wrong to say that only the West has stolen the money of the former Libyan regime. It is known that those people who fought against Gaddafi and who are now in power in Libya have conveyed many trucks literally stuffed with money abroad.”

The Head of the International Association for Democracy in Libya Fatima abu an-Niran confirms what Mr. Egorin says:

“The chaotic situation in Libya enabled everyone to steal anything that lay in his or her temptation’s way. The West was quite aware of that, but didn’t try to stop it. I can back my words with facts, and the former head of Libya’s Central Bank can also confirm this.”

“The $ 150 bln on Gaddafi’s and other former Libyan leaders’ bank accounts is not the only money that was stolen during the period of anarchy in Libya,” Ms. an-Niran continues. “Lots of money was trafficked and is still being trafficked abroad by the Libyan “revolutionaries” themselves. To a large extent, the situation in Libya still remains chaotic. The new authorities seem to be incapable of controlling the situation in many of the country’s provinces. These provinces are in fact controlled by groups of bandits who do whatever they want with those who try to resist them.”

“When the West threw bombs on Libya, Western politicians said that this allegedly was done to help Libyans oust the tyrant and establish democracy in their country,” Ms. an-Niran says. “Now, it has turned out that these words were mere demagogy. The real aim of the West was to try to steal Libya’s riches.”

True, it looks like now that Gaddafi has been ousted, the West doesn’t care anymore about what is happening in Libya. It also looks like the current Libyan leaders care more about staying in their posts – or occupying higher posts if possible – than about trying to return the $ 150 bln which mysteriously disappeared back into their country, which now badly needs restoration after the war.

Wasn’t “Superman” supposed to change this with all of his “hope and change”magic ?

The truth about America’s jobless rate

In many respects, much if not all of the economic gains made in the United States from the past decade have been wiped out due to Wall Street malfeasance. Looking forward, I expect America to lose at least another decade.

While some of the economic turmoil is certainly due to the biggest real estate collapse in US history, a much larger portion is the result of the weak job market which is likely to persist for a number of years.
Although the real estate market appears to have bottomed, you should not expect anything other than a very gradual rise from here. In the absence of bubble conditions, the rate of real estate appreciation generally tracks that of inflation.

The biggest lift to the real estate market would come from lasting improvements in the job market. Thus, it is important to identify the real reasons for the persistently high unemployment rate so that adequate solutions can be designed. If the factors accounting for the continued weakness in the labor market are not addressed, America stands a good chance to lose much more than a decade.

Establishment economists have offered some ridiculous explanations when trying to account for the high unemployment rate. The purpose of this propaganda is to distract attention away from misguided economic policies put in place by America’s fascist government.

Before we discuss the establishment’s explanation of the high jobless rate, let’s examine some facts about the US labor market.

• Since mid-2009, there have been between 3.5 and 6 unemployed Americans for every job opening. This means jobs have been in short supply. This ratio is roughly double what it was in the last recession in 2001. This data reflects, in large part, that job openings are one-fourth lower now than they were in the last recovery.

• In the first 12 months of the so-called “recovery” there were 32 million job openings. While this may sound like a large number, it was 10 million fewer openings than the first 12 months of the prior recovery, which was known for being a so-called jobless recovery.

• The shortfall in job openings during the current “recovery” compared to the previous one is widespread. Job openings continue to be small in number in nearly every sector including labor intensive service industries such as hospitality, entertainment, and accommodation.

• Layoffs during the early stages of this “recovery” are comparable to those in the prior recovery, and thus cannot explain the lasting high unemployment rate.

Arguments Used by the Establishment

Two arguments are being debated by America’s establishment economists as the cause of the persistently high unemployment rate. Each argument has been offered in order to hide the real cause from the American people. It turns out that both arguments are supportive of America’s fascist agendas which go hand in hand with the economic mandates of globalization. Let’s take a look at each of these viewpoints.

Establishment economists working for the left-wing contingency of America’s fascist government claim that the high unemployment rate is a consequence of what is known as cyclical unemployment. This theory argues that unemployment is related to changes in demand that occur through business and economic cycles. In other words, the unemployment rate remains high due to low economic demand.

This is a viewpoint that is utilized in order to justify government spending during economic contractions. During the first two years of the Obama presidency, the cyclical unemployment argument was unanimously accepted.

Establishment economists working for the right-wing contingency of America’s fascist government claim that the stubbornly high unemployment rate is due to structural factors. This is known as the structural unemployment argument. This argument essentially places the blame on unemployed workers.

The Republican Party has embraced the structural unemployment argument when stating its case against additional economic stimulus, all while maintaining favorable tax treatment for corporations and wealthy individuals. More recently, this argument has also gained acceptance by the Obama administration after various economic programs have failed to bring the unemployment rate down to more reasonable levels.

Overall, the structural unemployment argument is more widely accepted by the nation’s establishment economists. So in other words, politicians and economists are once again placing blame on Main Street for something caused by Wall Street and corporate America; truly amazing.

The Weak Demand Argument

Superficially, the high unemployment rate points to lack of demand; the argument posed by left-wing establishment economists, otherwise referred to as cyclical unemployment.

During the early stages of the economic collapse, Washington sided with this argument. In order to resolve the cyclical unemployment issue, Obama passed numerous stimulus packages (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, car allowance rebates, homebuyers tax credits, payroll tax cuts, etc.) in order to stimulate demand. But once the money was spent, demand disappeared. Thus, these stimulus programs were ineffective.

Throughout Obama’s tenure, the Federal Reserve has also been trying to stimulate job growth, or so it claims, through quantitative easing. But the reality points to a much different outcome. This program has actually provided a hidden bailout to the financial industry at the expense of the nation’s private and public pension system. This is an issue that I will address in the future.

Despite the massive amount of government spending due to various types of economic stimulus, establishment economists from the left, such as Paul Krugman insist on the need for more spending to add a boost to the economy. These are the same economists who now criticize the greed, ignorance and incompetence that led to the previous real estate-credit bubble, yet are trying their best to reflate it again; simply amazing.

So what is Krugman saying?

Is he admitting that the economy is incapable of generating demand on its own after receiving numerous stimulus packages, in addition to several rounds of quantitative easing?

He most certainly is. I have no doubt that Krugman realizes that the fundamental issue preventing job growth is not being addressed. And he isn’t talking about it because after all, he does work for the establishment. This is why his hot air continues to be published throughout America’s tightly controlled propaganda machine.

It is important to keep in mind that Krugman did not predict the financial crisis or economic collapse, which now calls a depression. None of the economists or investment “pros” positioned as experts in the media made these predictions, despite claims made by the media. This is a statement of fact.

You will also recall that every mainstream economist claimed there was no recession for nearly one year after it began in December 2007. Many of these hacks also claimed that the effects of the real estate correction would not extend into the overall economy. Finally, these are the same shills that insisted that the recession ended in June 2009 and a recovery has since been under way.

In contrast, I was the only person who predicted the financial crisis in detail and the resulting economic collapse in America’s Financial Apocalypse (2006). And I was the only person in the world to lay out a detailed case for a depression in the US just before the problems began to surface. Thus, who are you going to believe, me or hacks in the media like Krugman?

As previously mentioned, the cyclical unemployment argument has served as impetus for excessive economic stimulus packages over the past several years. However, the creation of currency out of thin air will not in itself stimulate real or lasting demand.

The economic response from Washington and the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve have failed to reinvigorate economic demand because they have not addressed the fundamental economic problems. These “solutions” have been ineffective and very costly to tax payers.

The Structural Unemployment Myth

Structural unemployment is thought to occur due to mismatches between the skills held by the labor force and those required by employers. For instance, economists supportive of the structural unemployment theory explain the high jobless rate by arguing that displaced workers lack adequate skills, their skills have deteriorated or are no longer useful to industries which are expanding.

In contrast to the cyclical unemployment argument, which has a limited role in accounting for the high unemployment rate, there is no evidence that structural unemployment has been even somewhat responsible for the persistently high unemployment rate. In fact, data from employer job openings, layoffs and hires actually contradict claims of unemployment due to structural issues.

If we are to accept the premise of structural factors as a primary cause of the high jobless rate, it is important to explain how it was possible for millions of previously well-qualified workers to suddenly have lost the skills necessary for employment in such a short period of time. In other words, we must ask how these workers were able to fulfill employer demands just months before losing their job, but no longer possess the skills required to function in the same job. Maybe the corporate world advanced at the speed of light in just a few months, leaving workers’ skills obsolete. Neither of these possibilities is plausible.

The real reason accounting for the sudden loss of jobs is due to the fact that these jobs were created by the real estate-credit bubble. And when the bubble popped, the jobs disappeared. It is as simple as that.

Now that the economy is no longer being propped up by bubble conditions (although the need to deleverage remains), the corporate world is much more competitive. So instead of hiring in the US along with outsourcing, corporate America is doing a lot more outsourcing and a lot less hiring in the US.

Establishment economists representing the right have attempted to stray away from the realities of the real estate collapse by pointing to yet another misguided view supportive of the structural unemployment argument. These are typically the economists you see on investment-related shows or those from Wall Street. According to this view, the depressed real estate market has prevented the jobless from relocating to regions where their skills are in demand.

This is another ridiculous justification. Individuals who are tied down to their homes are generally able to pay their mortgage and are therefore gainfully employed.

Perhaps the most ludicrous explanation offered to support the structural unemployment argument rests with the premise that the unemployed do not live in places where there are job openings. This argument ties into the previous one. In other words, the unemployed are immobile because they are unable to sell their home.

Let’s assume that this large group of unemployed workers had greater mobility. Certainly, we can identify several million unemployed Americans who have suffered a foreclosure and are therefore no longer tied down to their place of residence. These jobless individuals would naturally relocate to states with lower unemployment, right?

The question is, would there be an adequate number of jobs for them once they relocated to states with lower rates of unemployment?

The answer is no. To confirm this, simply match the pool of some 16 million unemployed workers (official government numbers which are understated) with the job openings in the small handful of states with a low unemployment rate.

According to left-wing economists, the structural unemployment problem can be resolved if workers go back to school and learn new skills. They argue that this would help justify the delays in lowering the unemployment rate due to the time it takes to become reeducated and receive a job offer. But I can guarantee you that this approach would not resolve the labor issues in the US.

These same economists have stated that much of the mismatch in skills can be seen in the construction industry. According to the logic offered by the structural unemployment argument, many of these construction jobs will never return. While this is certainly true, the main factor accounting for this reality is that these jobs never should have existed in the first place. The real estate-credit bubble created false demand, which temporarily supported the creation of millions of jobs in the construction, real estate and financial sectors.

If these jobs were created based on real demand, they would not disappear forever. Instead, they would disappear according to cyclical adjustments and reappear during an economic expansion. In other words, they would have reappeared by now since, according to Washington, the US economy has been in recovery mode since June 2009.

The Solution to the Jobless Rate

While a small portion of the labor force remains unemployed due to structural changes, this percentage is not appreciably higher than that seen during recent recessions. In contrast, some of the lost jobs are due to cyclical factors stemming from reduced demand.

The main reason for the persistently high jobless rate in the US is due to poorly structured trade policies which have reduced the incentives for domestic job creation. Thus, the solution to the high unemployment rate is the same as it has been for many years. Free trade must be restructured to make it fair trade.

The effects of America’s misguided trade policy have kept demand low during the current recession, but real demand has been in decline for over two decades. The real estate-credit bubble hid this reality and created artificial demand. Now that this bubble has imploded, Americans are exposed to the real face of the US economy.

Suppression of the Truth by the Media

The critical need to restructure trade policy was one of the main themes behind America’s Financial Apocalypse. I concluded that US trade policy has been the number one factor most responsible for America’s decline. I also stated that free trade was the primary factor responsible for the wealth and income disparity in the US.

Criticism of the destructive effects of US trade policy would upset those who control politicians; banks and corporations. Thus, as you can imagine, the book was not well-received by the publishing world or the media. As a result, shortly after America’s Financial Apocalypse was released in late 2006, I was black-listed by the US media, both mainstream and so-called alternative.

You will never hear the trade issue accurately portrayed by economists, politicians and Wall Street fund managers and analysts who have been inducted into the media club. Instead, the media embraces those who make false claims about or distract from free trade, healthcare and other critical issues; Paul Krugman, Ben Stein, Peter Schiff, Nouriel Roubini, Robert Reich and several others, most of which are Zionists. Meanwhile, others who are not part of the tribe are left out of the debate. This is all being done intentionally.

America’s media monopoly is controlled by corporate America and Washington. The purpose of this monopoly is not to report news, as most people assume. Its only purpose is to control public perception. It achieves this control over the masses through selling ads to corporations, which in turn receive favorable propaganda in the media-entertainment complex. This business relationship also helps fulfill the objectives of Washington because Washington and corporate America are one and the same.

Washington does not want Americans to understand the real economic problems facing their nation because it’s all about maximizing corporate profits at any expense, as one would expect from a fascist government. This is specifically why profits have remained near record-highs throughout the current recession, now entering its 59th month.

Meanwhile, US jobs continue to be shipped overseas. This explains why there has been no increase in real median wages since 1999. Why raise salaries when you can hire workers overseas for lower wages?

In conclusion, the persistently high jobless rate seen in the US is not due to structural factors. At the same time, it cannot be explained fully by economic cycle theory. America continues to suffer from its longest and most severe economic recession in over 130 years. This recession is the first of what will surely be more to come over the next decade.

Once historians and economists figure out what has happened and find the courage to document it accurately, this period will eventually be referred to as America’s Second Great Depression. Unfortunately, by that time it will be too late for those who stand to lose the most.

How FDR Dragged Out WW II for Stalin

War is the continuation of politics by other means. Carl von Clausewitz

For more than half a century, every sixth of June, countless patriotic Americans, Britons, Canadians and others gather to pay homage to thousands of young men who “gave their lives for their country” on the beaches of Normandy. More than 200,000 American fighting men were killed in World War II, together with 375,000 British and millions of other nationalities. Most of these deaths occurred after mid-1943, when it was clear to all concerned that the Axis and Japan had lost. Why did the fighting continue for two years after the issue had been decided?

John Dombrowski

Suppose the United States had been presented with the opportunity to end World War II in 1943 on far more favorable terms than it was able to get after the sacrifice of so many lives in the subsequent two years. The countries of Eastern Europe, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Albania would have been kept out of the hands of the Communists. Perhaps even the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia would have regained their independence from the Soviet Union. Adolf Hitler would have been deposed and either killed or turned over to allied authorities, and a united, non-Communist, anti-Nazi Germany would have peacefully given up its European conquests.

That we would have passed up such an opportunity is next to inconceivable to anyone who has received the standard education in American history. It would not be at all shocking, though, to anyone familiar with what has been revealed about the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration on this web site.

The fact is that we were given just such an opportunity, but the president didn’t so much as give it a second look. The conveyor of the message from the German power brokers to FDR, his friend and special envoy to neutral Turkey, former Pennsylvania governor George Earle, was as dumbfounded and disappointed as most Americans would have been. He didn’t know what we now know—but most Americans still don’t—about Roosevelt and his administration. Governor Earle had no way of knowing, for instance, that FDR had been told on good authority in 1939 that his government was laced with Stalin’s agents, throughout the State and Treasury Departments and right up to the White House, and he did absolutely nothing about it. He even allowed the named agents to rise to positions of greater power and influence.

Governor Earle would not have known that when Rep. Martin Dies had similarly presented the president with evidence of wholesale Communist infiltration of the government in 1940, Roosevelt had responded:

I do not regard the Communists as any present or future threat to our country, in fact I look upon Russia as our strongest ally in the years to come. As I told you when you began your investigation, you should confine yourself to Nazis and Fascists. While I do not believe in Communism, Russia is far better off and the world is safer with Russia under Communism than under the Czars. Stalin is a great leader, and although I deplore some of his methods, it is the only way he can safeguard his government.

Governor Earle would not have known that FDR had also told Dies, “I do not believe in Communism any more than you do, but there is nothing wrong with the Communists in this country. Several of the best friends I have are Communists.” Neither would Earle have known that FDR had confided to then Archbishop Francis Spellman that when the war was concluded he thought that the Communists would control about 40 percent of the world and that was pretty much as it should be.

Most importantly, Governor Earle would not have known that Roosevelt’s closest adviser on both foreign and domestic matters, Harry Hopkins, was, in all likelihood, an espionage agent for Joseph Stalin.

It may be a novel idea these days, our Middle Eastern policy being what it is, but when Governor Earle went to Turkey he no doubt thought he was representing a government that put the interests of his own country first. Any foreign policy moves that appeared to run completely counter to U.S. interests he would have probably chalked up to stupidity. He would not be aware of what would lie behind the statement that then Navy Secretary James Forrestal would make to the newly elected Senator Joe McCarthy in 1946, “McCarthy, consistency has never been a mark of stupidity. If they were merely stupid they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor.”

What follows is a long excerpt from Appendix III of the little-known 1976 book by Hamilton Fish, FDR, The Other Side of the Coin: How We Were Tricked into World War 11 entitled “Interview between Curtis B. Dall and Former Governor George Earl [sic] of Pennsylvania Regarding Secret Efforts of High German Officers and Officials to Surrender Eighteen Months before the End of the War”:

Colonel Curtis B. Dall, the author of FDR, My Exploited Father-in-Law, very kindly gave me permission to use parts of his interview with former Governor George Earl of Pennsylvania, a close friend of President Roosevelt and his appointee as minister to Austria and minister to Bulgaria. In 1943 Earl was the special envoy of the president as naval attaché to neutral Istanbul (Constantinople), Turkey, to keep the White House informed of what was going on in the Balkans and in Germany.

Colonel Dall lunched with Earl many years after the war. The latter opened the conversation by saying, “Dall, I told your father-in-law, FDR, when I was his naval attaché in Istanbul, how we could greatly shorten World War II. The governor then proceeded to unfold an amazing story.

Governor Earl arrived in Istanbul in the spring of 1943. He told me one morning there was a knock on his hotel room door. He opened it and there stood a broad-shouldered, medium-sized man in civilian clothes who requested an informal conference. He presented himself as Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the German Secret Service. The gist of the conversation was, there were many sensible German people who loved their fatherland and who greatly disliked Adolf Hitler, feeling that Hitler was leading their nation down a destructive path. Admiral Canaris continued, saying that the unconditional surrender policy recently announced by Roosevelt and Churchill at Casablanca was something the German generals could not swallow. He said, however, if President Roosevelt would merely indicate he would accept an honorable surrender from the German army to American forces, such an event could be arranged. That the real enemy of western civilization (Soviet Communism) could then be stopped. The German army, if so directed, would move to the eastern front and stop the Communist army’s march into eastern Europe. The Soviets’ main objective was to establish themselves as the supreme power in Europe.

The governor remarked that at first he was staggered, but was extremely cautious of his reaction to the admiral and to the startling proposal.

Then followed a meeting with the German ambassador Fritz von Papen, a devout Roman Catholic and strongly anti-Hitler in his feelings. The governor told me that he soon became convinced of the sincerity manifested by the anti-Nazi Germans. Becoming further informed concerning the hidden designs of the Soviet forces, he promptly dispatched a coded message to FDR in Washington via the diplomatic pouch reporting the whole matter. He then waited for the requested prompt reply. None came. Thirty days later, as agreed, Admiral Canaris phoned him and asked, “Have you any news?” The governor replied, “I am waiting for news but have none today.”

The same question was again posed to Governor Earl by Baron von Lersner, who headed the Orient Society. If the anti-Nazi forces in Germany delivered the German army to the American forces, could they then count on allied cooperation in keeping the Soviets out of central Europe? Hence, if Roosevelt would merely agree to an “honorable surrender,” von Lersner stated, even if Hitler was not killed by his group, he would be handed to the Americans. Furthermore, the Soviet army could be held in check and contained in suitable areas.

Again, the governor said, he dispatched an urgent coded message to the White House, pleading with President Franklin Roosevelt to explore what the anti-Nazis had to offer. Still no reply came back to him!

Then followed another meeting with von Lersner, who came up with an added plan to surround Hitler’s remote eastern military headquarters, then move the German army to the eastern front until a ceasefire could be arranged.

Governor Earl said he then prepared and sent a most urgent message to Roosevelt in Washington, not only via the diplomatic pouch but through Army-Navy channels, this time to make sure the important message got through to FDR. He said he felt that FDR and his top advisers were under the spell of Joe Stalin, or that he, Roosevelt, mistakenly felt that he could “charm” Stalin.

A plane had been readied in Istanbul, he said; upon receipt of the hoped-for favorable reply from Roosevelt Governor Earl was to fly to an undisclosed spot in Germany, there to receive more details leading to surrender terms to be sent at once to the White House for further action. The plane near Istanbul awaited the next step—and it waited and waited.

The governor said he was getting more and more discouraged and frustrated when no reply came from Washington in response to his urgent messages.

Finally, in effect, a purported answer did come. It was the he should take up with the field commander in Europe any proposals for a negotiated peace. Could any procedure have been more impractical or tragic?

Governor Earl continued, “I was shocked, greatly disheartened, and felt my usefulness was about over. So I returned to the U.S.A., came back home, and World War II proceeded along its scheduled course until the Soviets sat astride Europe.”

He then added, after a while, “However, I decided to make known some of my views and observations about our so-called allies, the Soviets, so as to wake up the American people about what was really going on. I contacted the president about it, but he reacted strongly and specifically forbade me to make my views known to the public. Then, upon my requesting active duty in the Navy, I was ordered to Samoa in the distant South Pacific. There my extensive experience with the double-faced Soviets and our lost opportunity to stop needless carnage, to prevent a great Soviet victory in Europe would not make any impression on the friendly Samoans.”

Here is a truthful account by former Governor Earl of Pennsylvania, a friend and supporter of FDR, as to how he conveyed to President Roosevelt, eighteen months before the end of the war, a direct offer from the German army to surrender to the American army and kill Hitler or turn him over to American control. In return the German army offered to fight to prevent Stalin and the Communists from taking over the free and independent eastern European nations and bringing communism [sic] into central Europe. What a tragedy!

The freedom and democracy for which we fought was destroyed in eastern Europe. FDR refused to accept a black-out of Nazism, the protection of Poland and eastern European nations from Communist domination, and to save the lives of scores of thousands of American, British and French soldiers and enormous additional war costs.

The American public has probably never heard of Governor Earl’s repeated attempts to end the war against Germany through the surrender of the German army and the trial and execution of Hitler by our armed forces.

If Roosevelt had accepted this capitulation, practically on his own terms, it would have been the end of Hitler and Nazism. Freedom and democracy would have been restored to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and other nations. It is enough to make you weep…. (pp. 237-241)

This 1943 peace overture was far from the only one made by high German officials to the U.S. government. John Dombrowski, in his December 1997 Culture Wars article, “The Greatest War Crime,” lists a number of them. Canaris, himself, as Dombrowski notes, hardly put all his eggs in the George Earle basket. He also made contact with the head of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the CIA, William J. Donovan, through a subordinate of his who was an old friend of Donovan. Donovan received about the same reaction from Roosevelt that Adolf Berle had received in 1939 when he brought the revelations from Whittaker Chambers of massive Communist infiltration of the government. “In spite of Donovan’s pleadings ‘President Roosevelt… flatly declined to negotiate’” with key men such as Canaris whom he characterized as “these East German Junkers.”

Standing as an obstacle to any negotiated surrender, as noted by Admiral Canaris, was Roosevelt’s stubborn adherence to the “unconditional surrender” demand that he had announced at the Casablanca Conference in January of 1943. But what could have lain behind a policy that made the achievement of the political aims of the war so much more difficult for the United States? Roosevelt’s fundamental anti-German prejudice has been offered as one explanation. But that would not explain the rigid application of the same policy toward Japan, as well. Maybe one could credit that to the anti-Japanese attitude of Roosevelt’s Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, but no one forced Roosevelt to put the Republican war hawk Stimson in that position.

When FDR propounded his “unconditional surrender” policy at Casablanca, it was opposed by both Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Looking at who benefitted from it most, one can’t help but suspect that Stalin’s objections were insincere and cosmetic. Communist gains and American military costs both human and material in the Pacific theater rivaled those in Europe from our adherence to the “unconditional surrender” doctrine. Advised by the same people who advised FDR, President Truman responded to his own Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, and his peace efforts the same way that Roosevelt responded to George Earle.

One might conclude from all this that we simply paid too little heed to the von Clausewitz dictum and lacked a clear vision of our political objectives in the war. The preponderance of evidence indicates, however, that Forrestal’s suggestion to McCarthy was right on the money, that we weren’t just bunglers. The objectives of those with the power were all too clear in their minds; they just weren’t those that served the best interests of the American people.

Voting in America is a joke. The oligarchy is still going to reign supreme and your standard of living will continue to decline. Why can’t Americans get that these major political parties see them as disposable ? They don’t care about voters. These elections are for show anyhow with the winners pre-ordained beforehand. Iraqi elections under Saddam Hussein were more legitimate. It was Saddam or Saddam, but at least he was honest about it. Here they act like you have a real choice, make all of the promises in the world and carry out none, except for the corporations and wealthy families that own them.

Voting either Democrat or Republican is waste of vote – Scott Olsen

Both the main US parties are working for the same system and taking money from the same people, so choosing between them makes no sense, war vet and Occupy Wall Street icon Scott Olsen told RT.

He added that now OWS is changing its strategies it may not be quite as visible, but he believes the future will be a successful one for Occupy.

RT: You are one of dozens of war veterans who have returned their medals to NATO generals here in Chicago, throwing the medals into the direction where NATO leaders were meeting. What is the reason for this? Do you feel betrayed?

Scott Olsen: I really do. And betrayal is the biggest fact here I think. We have all joined the military for our own reasons. But we joined to help other people, to be part of something bigger than ourselves and to defend our country. And when we went over to Iraq, Afghanistan or wherever our service was, we saw that it just was not true and we are destroying people’s lives. We are not doing good work in Iraq or Afghanistan and that’s why I don’t want these medals. Because they represent something that is not important to me, it is meaningless to me. I am not proud of being part of the system that has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. That is not something to be proud of and that is not something to get an award for.

RT: Your injuries at Occupy Oakland clashes with police got people talking about the fact that veterans sometimes really do get injured at home after being injured abroad. Do you think that’s the case?

SO: I don’t think there are more veterans getting hurt here. But there are a lot of veterans getting hurt by the system, in a sense that they come back to a broken system, a system that they feel disconnected from. And that is why we have eighteen veterans a day committing suicide, that’s why we have so many homeless veterans. It is the system hurting veterans.

RT: Why do you think it is that when billions of dollars are being spent on US warfare, as we speak, we are seeing a staggering number of homeless and jobless veterans here in the United States?

SO: Because people are making money out of these wars. They are getting money from our government to buy their toys, to buy their equipment and to fund these wars. That’s how they make their riches. There is always money for war but we never have money for schools.

RT: Do you think the authorities, who recruit soldiers such as yourself to do their bidding for them abroad, are essentially lying to get people to join the military about the reasons behind the wars the US is involved with?

SO: For military recruiters they at least mislead people. They may not lie to you, but they will mislead you, not give you the whole story. That’s why it is so important if you think of joining the military to talk to as many veterans as you can find and get as many points of view as you can.

RT: What do you think the majority of those veterans will say?

SO: I think the majority would recommend against joining. It is a life-changing thing and I wouldn’t take my joining back because it made me who I am, but I would not recommend anyone else to make this mistake.

RT: It is going to be a year in September since the Occupy Wall Street movement kick-started. What stage is the movement at now? What should we be expecting next?

SO: It is not as big now as it should be. It could always be bigger and louder. We are changing to other strategies that may not be quite as visible, working on creating worker-managed businesses that are really going to take the money away from money-borrowing to the corporate system. That is going to be really successful for the future of Occupy.

RT: Some critics of the Occupy Wall Street movement are trying to undermine the substance of what it is all about by saying that it is almost a year on and no unified strong single message. What do you say to those people?

SO: Any time there is a large number of people demanding change and someone feels threatened they are going to attack in any way and every way. We do have a message. Everybody who comes here has their own message. But it is very common, we are working and we are not getting what we really deserve. We are working our asses off. We work more than most other countries in the world. And our salaries have not grown in years, our corporations are making billions every day and our retirement pensions are being cut, our schools are being cut.

RT: One of the things the Occupy Wall Street movement is demanding is the accountability for bankers and CEOs on Wall Street. Do you think it is naïve to expect this several years after the economic crisis? Why still demand this?

SO: I don’t really know if we are going to get the real changes we are looking for just by asking. It has to be forced change. Banks will always find a way to screw us over. They will always find a way to maximize their profits and they maximize their profits without actually doing any work. So by taking that money they take it from somebody else.

RT: Presidential elections in the US are just around the corner and four years after Barack Obama was elected critics are now saying that there is no difference between Democrats or Republicans as they are two sides of the same coin. Are you expecting any kind of change to take place after the elections regardless of which of the parties wins?

SO: Not particularly. Most likely people are either going to vote for Democrats or Republicans and I think both those are wrong choices. They are both working for the same system, they are both taking money from the same people, from the same banks and you can see in their policy that they are rewarding their donors. Voting for the continuing of this policy is not going to change anything at all.

RT: So considering both Democrats and Republicans essentially bring the same thing to the table, what is the alternative? What could be the other option for the United States?

SO: That’s a good question. You can vote for the third party that may not win. You may count voting for the third party as a waste of vote, but I think voting for a Democrat or a Republican is a waste of vote. You are shooting yourself in the foot if you are voting for either of those.

RT: When the Occupy Wall Street movement first started, the mainstream media were trying hard to undermine the protesters. They were saying that it is a bunch of dirty hippies and later trying to say they have no message. There was constant criticism and they could not take the movement seriously. Almost a year on since it has started how do you assess the way the mainstream media has been covering what the movement is all about?

SO: They have covered it more than I was expecting them to. I didn’t expect much of them. And that’s why we come out here and we build our own media that we need. We build websites and do web live stream events for everybody to know and to find out what they are missing out. But it is a shame that the everyday American is not going to see those things. The American who turns on the six o’clock news, they don’t hear about these things, just like they don’t hear about the wars we are still in. Most Americans probably do not really know that we are at war. They aren’t affected by these things.